In the follow essay, Crick attempts to regain his comprehension of King Lear by considering Lear and Cordelia's relationship.

I know of no more heartrending reading than Shakespeare.

Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

As a ‘form of life’ literary criticism is ever in danger of becoming a version of Horatio's singing gravedigger: ‘custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.’ I recently caught myself at it while teaching the first scene of King Lear yet again. It was an especially painful disclosure because I had long harboured the conviction that my grasp of this astounding opening—surely the most masterful in Shakespeare's dramas—was secure, and that the two lectures I was in the habit of devoting to it were the most...